


Circus

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Drama, Gen, Past Lives, case-fic, cross-over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thursday discovers a shared connection from the past with Morse when it comes back to bite his DC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circus

**Author's Note:**

> This is it for me until S3. Happy New Year, and see you on the flip side!

Morse is elbow-deep in hot water when the pounding starts on the door, his hands swollen and red with scouring the charcoal-lined bottom of his only saucepan. The fury of the pounding suggests desperation; the fact of it suggests someone with a key to the building. He snags a stained dishtowel on his way past the hook and opens the flat door with the hand he’s just finished drying.

Standing on the landing with her weather-beaten cheeks shot through with ugly red blotches and her lips pursed tight in either anger or fear is his landlady, Mrs Collins. She doesn’t even glance at his rolled-up shirtsleeves or the wet splotches on his front. “Mr Morse, you’ll oblige me by stepping downstairs. A terrible thing has happened!” 

“What’s that?” Morse leans back inside the flat to toss the dishcloth in the direction of the table.

“You’ll see for yourself downstairs. Mr Collins says we ought to call the police, but I’m sure I’ve never had them in the building these last twenty years – saving your presence of course.” She turns away and begins marching down the stairs at a brisk pace, leaving Morse with no choice but to close his door and follow. 

On the landing below his flat he meets Mr Collins, a small sandy-haired man who works under the bursar at one of the colleges. He stops wringing his hands as his wife comes down the stairs, tucking them away under his arms. “I told you, Effie, we should call the police,” he begins as she sweeps past, remaining in the doorway and staring after her. 

Mrs Collin’s voice blares out entirely audible from inside the flat, losing none of its tartness for the intervening wall. “Certainly not. We don’t need a pack of bobbies messing about in here, upsetting everyone. Not with Mr Morse right upstairs, just as I told you.” 

“What is it, exactly, that needs reporting?” asks Morse, as he too steps past Mr Collins into the flat. “Doesn’t this belong to an undergraduate student? Mr Graham, I think?” he adds, recalling the buzzer below his. “I really shouldn’t be entering without his … permission…”

Morse trails off as he rounds the corner of the entryway into the main room. The floor plot of the flat is the same as his directly above, although the difference in furniture creates a momentary optical illusion. None of that draws the eye, though. What does is the corpse hanging from an exercise bar screwed into the doorway to the tiny kitchen, its face grey and the lips and eyes bulging.

Morse whirls away, blinking hard and catching sight of his own shocked expression in the dark window directly across from him. He tears his glance from that, too, and starts looking around the room. “Where is his phone?”

Mrs Collins is standing in the centre of the room with her back to the body, arms crossed across her chest and eyes snapping. “What do you need that for?”

“Because, Mrs Collins, there is a dead man in this flat, and it needs to be reported.” He doesn’t bother to address her directly; he’s just spotted the phone on a small table on the far side of the fireplace. 

“We did report it – to you,” she says, crossly.

“Yes, and if you will excuse me, I now need to report it to the station.” Morse picks up the receiver, and dials 999.

\---------------------------------------------

“His name is Christopher Graham,” reports Morse an hour later, when the body has been cut down and there are two PCs in the building, much to Mrs Collins’ protest. Inspector Thursday is watching the pathologist work; Morse is looking through papers on the table. “He was up – at Merton, sir. I saw him now and then, on his way in or out. Seemed pleasant enough,” he adds, looking over his shoulder at Thursday, who nods. “Going by these, he must have been reading economics.” 

“Alright, that’s a start then. Find his tutor, friends, classmates. Sergeant Jakes and I will get onto his family. Doctor, anything you can tell us?”

DeBryn looks up from his place kneeling beside the body. “Time of death between four and six pm. Cause of death likely strangulation rather than a broken neck. Could very well have been this rope; significant force was exerted and at first glance the bruising is appropriate to its width.”

“So he could have done it to himself,” concludes Thursday. DeBryn shrugs.

“I can neither confirm nor deny it at this point, Inspector. It’s a plausible working theory. More once I’ve conducted the autopsy.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

The next morning Thursday drives out to Shropshire with Jakes to interview Graham’s family. They live in a small cottage near the Welsh border. The cottage itself is sunny and bright with new paint and wide windows, its lush garden large and well-tended. Not an expensive home, but a very well kept one. 

The cottage is full of flowers from the garden, arrangements of roses, delphiniums and cheery Black-Eyed Susans – the smell makes Thursday smile and Jakes sneeze. But then there is the family to contend with, and he forgets all about the blooms. 

Mr and Mrs Graham are unassuming people – he a low-level banker in the local business, she a housewife. Their manner is grim and stiff, their responses brief and flat. Their daughter, a few years younger than Graham, is pretty, quiet and flushed with tears. The parents offer no reason for their son’s death; according to them he was an excellent scholar, a keen rower and a popular young man. Grief has hardened them, their coldness at odds with the cheerfulness of the cottage Their daughter says nothing, staring away into the garden and wiping her face with a handkerchief. 

Thursday and Jakes leave hardly more enlightened than they arrived, getting back in the Jag to make the three hour drive back with nothing to show for the trip.

Back in Oxford, Thursday blows into the CID incident room with the smell of Jakes’ Benson and Hedges in his coat. Ready for a good pipe and Morse’s report on Graham’s professors and friends, he feels a stab of irritation at seeing his bagman’s desk empty. He takes a seat in his office and starts filling his pipe, waiting for Morse to return.

Two hours later at quitting time, he’s still waiting. Eventually, Jakes pokes his sleek head around the corner to ask if he wants a ride home. There’s nothing dangerous about asking questions at Oxford, even the kinds of tactless questions Morse likes to ask. Thursday accepts, switching off his lights and gathering up his coat and hat slowly. 

But Morse still doesn’t make an appearance, nor does he answer his home telephone when Thursday calls him later that evening.

The next morning when Morse doesn’t show up at his doorstep, Thursday calls for a ride. At Cowley Station, he ransacks Morse’s desk for his information; finds Graham’s course schedule and some notes on overlapping students. One name, however, sticks out. Graham’s tutor, Fanshawe. 

Thursday stands, taking the paper with him, and returns to his office where he closes and locks the door.

He never went to university, never mind Oxford, but he still knows the Circus talent-spotters in his own town. 

\----------------------------------------------------------

It takes him nearly an hour of explanations, enticements and threats to finally get the connection he needs. By then he’s more than a little stroppy, two pencils with broken tips and a jammed type-writer to prove it. 

“George Smiley,” comes the quiet, unassuming voice on the other end. Thursday sits up, chair jerking sharply as he shifts his weight. 

“Fred Thursday,” replies Thursday, immediately. “We haven’t met, but –”

“We have a mutual acquaintance. Bill Haydon.”

It wasn’t the name he had gone by back then, of course. But back in England, in the long series of debriefings that had followed Cassino, Thursday had learned some of the other side of the business. As Bill Haydon had now buried his work name and taken up his true self, Thursday had done the reverse. He understood it; men recruited in the field didn’t always have the luxury of keeping their identities. They were lucky enough to hold onto their lives. 

“You’ve seen my file,” says Thursday, unsurprised.

“No, I’m afraid the cataloguers aren’t quite as brisk as one could hope. But I’ve spoken to Haydon; he remembers you.” Smiley is speaking politely, but Thursday isn’t misled; it takes more than smiles to disguise purposeful obtuseness. 

“Flattering,” comments Thursday. “It’s not my file I’m calling about, though. I imagine you knew that.”

“I suppose I did. I would prefer not to talk over this line, however. Perhaps you could come in.”

 _Come in_. Smiley had once been a field agent, same as him. The words carried the same weight for both of them, weren’t chosen at random. _Come in_ , was never a reprieve, never a reward. It was usually followed by phrases such as, _You’ve been blown,_ or _You’ve ballsed it up,_ or even, _You’re being shelved_. And then all that was left was the desperate scrabble to get out before something blew up in your face. 

“Where?” The single, guttural word gives away more of his apprehension than he likes.

“Do you know Sarratt? I believe you have visited.”

Thursday feels his blood run cold. “I remember.” He had been debriefed there, more than twenty years ago. But even then, exhausted and deadened by the assignments and their toll in human life, he had been aware enough to understand what the facility was truly used for. 

“Two hours. The front desk will find me.” He says it as though speaking of a hotel reception, rather than the truth: the British Intelligence centre for combat training, detainment, and interrogation.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Sarratt is a grand manor on a sprawling estate, its rows of ancient elms and foreboding brick exterior meant to instill fear in captives and pride in the native sons of the Circus. The manor itself is an extensive one, doubtless once belonging to some titled family who filled it with servants and guests, silver plate and masters’ paintings. Now it is a rabbit warren of meeting rooms, interview rooms, huts situated in secluded spots throughout the grounds, and a basement Thursday has never seen and never wants to. 

The front hall of the mansion has been turned into a sort of reception area – Smiley’s term, not his. It features a heavy wooden desk, most likely reinforced, and two plain-faced men with square shoulders and blazers that do not quite disguise the bulk of their pistol holsters. “Mr Thursday?” asks one courteously, while the other watches with apparent disinterest as Thursday crosses the marble floor to the desk. Doubtless the guard at the front gate radioed ahead. 

“Yes. I’m here to meet George Smiley. And DC Morse,” he adds, to see the reaction. There is none.

“This way, please.” The guard who greeted him stands and ushers him through a door to the left. It leads into a long hallway with many closed doors, the dark wood paneling lit by modern, regular overhead lighting. 

He’s shown into a pleasant sitting room, complete with Axminster carpet, a set of matching brocade-upholstered easy chairs, carved coffee table and unobtrusive oil paintings. A remnant, he imagines, of the mansion’s past owners. There are also large bay windows which look out onto the grounds, currently a grey expanse being sprinkled by rain. 

George Smiley is sitting in the chair facing the door with a file on his lap. He places it on a side table beside him and stands to shake Thursday’s hand. He’s short, plump, and utterly unobtrusive. The sort of man that doesn’t provoke a second look or thought. But he spent the war in Germany running agents – a lonely, dark, dangerous road. He has none of Bill Haydon’s glamour and charisma, but there’s a quiet intensity to him which Thursday recognizes as the sign of deep calculation. Dangerous, Thursday thinks, and all the more so because he doesn’t look it.

“Pleased to meet you,” says Smiley, gesturing him towards a chair. Thursday inclines his head.

“Where’s Morse?” he asks, not bothering to beat around the bush.

“Here; a few doors down. He has been well-treated; no cause for concern.”

Thursday bites back a retort about the Circus definition of _well-treated_. He sits instead, folding his hands over his knees. “Why is he here?”

“Because, Inspector, he was once one of us. And in this business, sadly, we sometimes suspect our friends above our enemies.”

Thursday sits, staring at the man, and then at the file on the desk beside him printed with the words ENDEAVOUR MORSE, with _top secret_ stamped over them in faded red ink. The idea of Morse as an agent, or even an employee of the Circus, seems at first glance ridiculous. But then, he is the type they love to scoop up: young, brilliant, a head for languages and an excellent memory. And also, if Thursday is honest: a loner, unattached, confident and mulishly stubborn. 

“Why? In this case, what is there to suspect Morse?” he clarifies, keeping his temper. 

“We picked Morse up when he dropped out of Oxford – he had already been approached by our talent-spotter, and with nothing else to do and his life in pieces on the floor, he came to us. We trained him, tested him, and put him out on local jobs; nothing strenuous until we were sure he had gotten over the Oxford disaster. But after a year and a half he upped and quit, just walked out of an operation, breaking half a dozen rules and sending my superiors into fits. So he was debriefed, turned inside-out and then eventually tossed out on his ear with a cover story about Signals. After that, he came to the Force.”

It sounds typical enough of Morse, but it’s certainly not the whole story. “I still don’t hear a reason,” says Thursday, letting an edge slip into his voice. 

“Morse never gave a satisfactory reason for his sudden change of heart. While it would be madness for a turn-coat to give up a safe, unsuspected slot in our ranks it may be that he had his reasons. His politics were certainly never a matter of much protection. The fact that he returned to Oxford, one of our recruiting grounds, hasn’t helped much either. In combination with the unexplained death of one of our most valuable recruits, it is enough to warrant investigation.”

Smiley’s confirmation that the Circus was indeed incubating Graham is anti-climactic, but none the less dangerous. They don’t take kindly to broken eggs in the hatchery. 

“You really believe Morse is an enemy operative? Why would he kill a man in the flat below him – might as well hang the hammer and sickle on his door. As for his politics – they don’t hold water because he has none. His views on God, Queen and Westminister are all the same: a waste of time. As for Country…”

Smiley raises his eyebrows in gentle inquiry. Thursday looks back, expression stony. 

“He’s British through and through; would never live anywhere else, could never love anywhere else.”

“Perhaps you would like to speak with him,” suggests Smiley.

“While you listen?” He hardly needs ask. Smiley looks right back, no trace of reaction on his face. “Fine. What can I offer him?”

“At this point? Nothing, I’m afraid. He remains until a satisfactory answer is found to Graham’s death, or he confesses. But I’m sure a conversation with you would help to clear up his thoughts and movements – he has stopped speaking with us.” _For now_ hangs unspoken between them. The Circus has ways and means of drawing out the information they want, and few of them are pleasant. 

Thursday rises. “In other words, it’s up to me to finish the case for you,” he says, flatly. 

“I think we can both agree that the case needs to be closed for Morse. That is his only safety. Unless it incriminates him, of course.”

Thursday gives Smiley a straight look. “It won’t.”

\-----------------------------------------------------

He’s taken to a plain door a few yards down the hallway; Smiley stops and indicates it. “Come out when you’ve finished,” he says, and starts to walk away. Thursday watches him for a moment, then turns and enters.

The room beyond is an interrogation room, but not a very foreboding one. Just a simple square room with dark walls and a bright light overhead which casts a strong cone of light below and leaves the rest of the room in shadows. The table looks heavy, thick wood with metal legs. The chairs are equally unforgiving, heavy metal and doubtless too heavy to lift easily or throw. They have bolts in the side and back for cuffs to be locked to. There is a darkened mirror on one wall, doubtless a one-way window. 

Morse is sitting in the circle of light, back straight and hands on the table. He is wearing yesterday’s clothes, his suit rumpled and his tie askew. His eyes are shadowed, hair mussed and slightly greasy – he obviously has had no rest. But he looks strong and unharmed – no signs of bruises or pain in his eyes, and no hint of fear at the opening of the door. 

As his eyes focus beyond the strong light and he recognizes Thursday he makes to rise, falling back when his chains catch on the chair. Thursday frowns – Morse isn’t a dangerous prisoner; the chains are just to scare him. More likely they are just irking him, he has nearly as much psychology as Thursday. 

“Sir,” he says, surprised. “They called you?”

Thursday sits down, finding the chair as heavy and uncomfortable ask expected. “I called them,” he says. He’s expecting to see shock on Morse’s face – in fact what he sees is a kind of surprised pleasure, as though receiving unexpected praise. “Are you alright?” he goes on, before Morse can ask inconvenient questions.

“They think I killed Graham,” says Morse, rather tiredly, ignoring his question. 

“More likely they think you _might_ have. Until they know who did, they want to hold you.” _And they can_. The Circus answered broadly to Westminister, but specifically rarely to anyone. “Do you know who did?”

“ _No_. He was just the man living below me. We’ve only met on the landing or the stairs a couple of times. His friends and tutor have no idea either. They said he was a bit high-strung and could occasionally be moody, but on the whole pleasant and happy at Oxford. He was very fond of his sister – she had just been to visit him – and apparently he got on perfectly well with his parents.”

“Anyone with a grudge?”

Morse shakes his head. “Not that anyone could identify. A few classroom rivalries, but they were purely academic and had no strong feeling behind them.” 

Thursday sighs. “Did they believe he could have taken his life?”

Morse shrugs. “They thought he had no reason to. No one came down absolutely against it, but no one could imagine why he would have. It’s not exam time, he wasn’t short of money, and he hadn’t had any upsets.” 

A nice, tight case with no solid leads or motives. Other than the one provided by the Circus to Morse. 

“Morse…” he begins, carefully. Morse looks at him, gaunt-looking in the strong light pouring down from above to cast long shadows under his cheekbones. His eyes are very wide, blue irises huge and vivid. 

“I didn’t do it, sir. I’ve no reason to. I’m no agent – hardly ever was one.” He sounds, for the first time, a little frightened. He can see the cage as well as Thursday, and unless one of them can find the way out he may be trapped in it. 

“We’ll get this sorted out, Morse. Just be patient.” _Don’t do anything daft_ goes unspoken. Morse doesn’t move, staring back at Thursday with a peculiarly subdued look.

“It’s not me who needs to be patient, sir.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Smiley is nowhere to be found when he steps out, but one of the expressionless guards from the front door is standing in the corridor waiting for him. The man, obviously hired for muscle more than brain, shows Thursday out; rather unnecessarily, he escorts him all the way to his car. The message is clear enough: _Don’t try anything._

As if anyone would be mad enough to. 

Thursday leaves the dark brick and damp grass of Sarratt behind him, pulling out onto the road so sharply he nearly hydroplanes and beating it back to Oxford with as much of the Jag’s power as he dares to loose on the wet roads. The engine hums smoothly when he eases off and roars as he revs, healthy and eager to run. 

He makes it back to Oxford before noon to find Jakes looking for him in the subtle way of a man not wanting to point out his superior’s been AWOL for hours. 

“Sir,” he says, sidling in as Thursday hangs his coat and hat up to shed the brief spray of drops picked up on the walk from the motor pool to the nick. “I’ve found something.” He’s looking around the office for Morse, but when Thursday raises his eyebrows interrogatively he goes on. “Used French letter in the bin. It was on top of the rest of the rubbish.”

Thursday pauses at that, feeling the cool draught from the window at his back; the seal has never been perfect. “He had a girlfriend? Wasn’t in any of the witness statements.”

“No, sir. I went and spoke to his closer friends; they never saw him with any birds, either regular or otherwise. Said he never was looking to chat anyone up in the pub, either. According to them, all he was interested in was finishing his degree with a first – no distractions.”

“So either they were wrong, or he was lying,” muses Thursday. “Anything else?”

“Still waiting on Morse’s report from his interviews, sir,” says Jakes, casually.

“Morse is pursuing another line of enquiry; the statements will have to wait. He did say there was nothing of apparent relevance. No enemies, no recent changes in his life.” Thursday sits down, chair creaking under him. “What about the neighbours?”

“Nothing remarkable about him; listened to jazz, apparently, but never so loud or so late as to come to anyone’s notice. Didn’t really speak to anyone, sir – they didn’t know him.”

“Did they see a girl?”

Jakes shrugs. “An elderly neighbour woman on the floor met a girl introduced to her as Graham’s sister. The PC doing the interview said the old woman thought he was telling the truth; family resemblance.”

“Could have been lying. Although we know the sister was up to visit him at least once, so like as nought it was the truth. Verify from the neighbour when she saw the girl, then find out when the sister was in town.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thursday takes out the soft-sided leather case that held his pipe, paccy pouch and cleaning supplies, and unfolds it on his desk. He stares at it for several seconds before standing, and striding out into the incident room to light a fire under the investigation team.

\-------------------------------------------------

DeBryn calls his condensed report through that afternoon. Death consistent with hanging from the rope the victim was found with. No signs of defensive wounds, no other wounds. Death could be a result of either suicide or murder – distinguishing between the two is in this case the work of the police. 

In fact, it only remains the work of the police for another two hours, whereupon Graham’s mailbox is opened and a single letter is found in it. The return address is the victim’s, the addressee his sister. It’s marked Return to Sender. 

It’s a long, pleading missive, and although it wanders from the point a good deal, the writing sloppy and ink smeared, the just is plain enough. _I love you. I need you. Please, can’t we keep this secret?_

Apparently, she hadn’t. 

\---------------------------------------------------------

Thursday speaks with the parents a second time: a long, hard interview full of grimness and silence. Nothing is admitted, but nor is it refuted in convincing terms. What he had originally taken for stiff-lipped grief, it is now apparent, is in fact shame. Shame, and disgust. 

The Grahams refuse Thursday the opportunity of speaking with their underage daughter – without a warrant, the prerogative is theirs. With their interview, the letter, and the evidence from the neighbour and the wastepaper bin, there is enough to close this case. 

Thursday returns to Oxford, locks himself in his office, and puts through another call. 

Although it is by this time nearly 9pm, it only takes 5 minutes to reach George Smiley.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Thursday picks Morse up from Sarratt; the arrangement was at the Circus’ recommendation, and he drove out with a lead foot. 

He finds Morse waiting for him in the entryway, like a child temporarily separated from his parents on an outing. He has a glassy-eyed look to him that sets Thursday’s jaw in a very hard line, and he doesn’t protest when Thursday makes him lean on his arm as they go down the stone steps under Thursday’s black umbrella. He’s very warm with the thick animal heat of a man about to curl up into sleep, eyes drooping, and Thursday expects him to fall asleep in the car. 

To Thursday’s surprise, he doesn’t. He insists on sitting in the front, one hand tangled in his hair tight enough to hurt – tight enough to keep him awake. 

“I want to know,” he says, wincing as they pull out past the strongly lit gates and shading his eyes. 

So Thursday tells him. About Graham’s tryst with his sister, about the family finding out, about the letter that was never read. About DeBryn’s comments regarding lack of defensive wounds. Morse says nothing, although he hunches down a little in his seat. He rubs his thumb over the line of his eyebrows as if to relieve a headache.

“They didn’t apologize,” he says, after a long silence.

Thursday glances at him; he’s staring out his window. In the reflection, Thursday can see his eyes are narrowed, but whether with drugged exhaustion, anger, or pain he can’t tell. 

“No,” says Thursday, unsurprised. “Did you expect them to?”

Morse sighs, breath fogging up the glass. “I suppose not.” He closes his eyes, rests his head against the window. “That’s why I left,” he adds, in a non sequitur. 

“Cruelty?” asks Thursday, surprised. The Circus can be cruel, but it isn’t particularly in its nature. Not any more than any other intelligence service.

“No rules. As long as you could get away with it, it was expected you would. Not with money. But nearly everything else.” His eyes crack open and he glances at Thursday, irises just slivers of blue. “That kind of power should never be absolute.”

Thursday is silent, and Morse straightens a little, opens his eyes wider. “You don’t agree.”

Thursday shrugs, eyes back on the road. It’s still raining, the asphalt black with puddles and the windscreen covered in a sheet of water the wipers can barely keep at bay. “I think it won us some victories we couldn’t have done without.”

“But you left anyway,” says Morse, accusingly.

“Watching men die because you’ve been ordered into action is one thing. Watching men and women who trusted you, who you signed up and brought into the firing line, die because of your mistakes, because of bad intelligence and worse decisions – that’s another. At least, that’s what I thought then.” _Before Luisa._

They drive in silence for a long time, the only sound that of the wipers and the wheels ripping through standing water. “I didn’t think you knew,” he says, in a low but conversational voice, eventually. He’s never held himself to be inscrutable, but nor has Morse ever shown a tendency to pry. Well. Not often, outside the bounds of the job. 

Morse tucks his head shyly. “It wasn’t you who gave it away – not mostly. You spotted the special branch man in the Mary Tremlett case right off the bat, and you speak German and Italian. But the herald didn’t know your surname, and Miss Thursday told me last year that you came home late in the war and were put up in the Dorchester.”

Thursday gives a tiny, wry smile. “That was after the debriefing, after it had all gone… after it had all gone. I’d had enough, and they shipped me back to my old regiment, but they were kind enough to give me a few days at home. Not that London was so much safer than the Front in those days.” He sighs. “It wasn’t a life I wanted, and it was one I was happy to leave. Plain coppering, that’s where I belong; always have done.”

Morse rests his elbow on the window and props his chin on his palm, and says nothing. His eyes are dimming as he looks out into the night, and Thursday wonders what he thinks of himself. Where Endeavour Morse belongs, or at least where he thinks he does.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Reading Morse falls asleep, and Thursday completes the rest of the journey with only the thoughts in his head, memories of a few old victories and far more failures. 

On the whole, he thinks, he would rather have had the company. 

END


End file.
